


for now we're two sparks

by raregoose



Series: we'll find ways to fill the empty [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (sort of), Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 18:01:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13862985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raregoose/pseuds/raregoose
Summary: Nikolaj's rookie is named Patrik. He's too tall for his body, everything about him is a bit crooked, he spends every waking moment playing hockey or Playstation, and there's something about him that is downright electric.If Patrik is lightning, which Nikolaj is certain that he is, then Nikolaj is the rain, or Nikolaj is underwater, or Nikolaj is drowning, or-Nikolaj is royally screwed, basically.





	for now we're two sparks

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on the concept of this fic for 13 months across 4 different stories, and I finally, finally finished it! The story has changed a lot since I began the first version last February, but in many ways is the same. The original version was heavily inspired by ABBA music (and there are some callbacks to that in this version), while this story is mostly inspired by the album Siberia by Lights, especially the titular track (the title of this fic is from that song, and there's a quick reference to it within the fic as well). This fic is also a sister fic to my Mark/Jacob story "(no) hard feelings", but both can be read on their own. Note that Patrik's mother features in a small scene in this, which I understand might be a little squicky for some, so heads up on that!
> 
> This is basically a 10K love letter to Patrik Laine, so I hope you appreciate my boy as much as I do!
> 
> disclaimer: this is a complete and utter work of fiction that doesn't represent any real life truths or anything remotely close to true.

Meeting Patrik during camp was like Christmas morning to most of the guys in the room. There he was in the corner silently taping his stick, their brand new shiny Finnish toy, their 18 year old second overall pick with an unstoppable shot like a lightning bolt, the team’s new promise and savior.

And man, was he a weird dude.

He was quiet at first, not confident in his English, but the vets made sure to make him feel welcome. Buff basically sicced himself on the poor kid, Scheif talked a million miles an hour at him about God knows what, and Wheels simply sat next to him and invited him over for dinner.

“Be careful getting too friendly, Patty, or else you’ll get roped into babysitting!” Scheif laughed, and of course Scheif was already calling him Patty.

He was taking it all in stride, the chirps, the bumps, the invasive questions. His English was more comfortable on the ice, though at times when he got heated it all spilled out in a strange amalgam of language, a Finnish swear halfway into an English chirp or a mistranslated idiom leaving everyone but Joel confused.

Nikolaj met Patrik on the first day he arrived from the World Cup. He was walking into the dressing room and staring at his phone, not paying attention, when he walked straight into him. Patrik was a wall of a teenager, with the lankiness of an 18 year old but the height of Buff.

“Oh. Hey, nice to meet you,” Nikolaj said, because apparently that was a good introduction.

“Nice to meet you,” Patrik replied simply. He was holding his stick. They looked at each other for a moment. “Nikolaj, right?” Nikolaj stared at him blankly. Patrik’s teeth were crooked. It was kind of endearing.

“Oh. Yeah! And you’re Patrik. Obviously. Or, I meant,” Patrik smiled at him. His smile was a little crooked too. Again, endearing.

“See you on the ice,” And that was it. Patrik walked away and Nikolaj watched him go, open-mouthed. 

So, a weird dude. An interesting dude, for sure. They, of course, had all already seen the infamous draft lottery interview Patrik did in bed, and by the end of camp were all chirping him relentlessly about it. Because with Patrik, everything was just fine. He laughed about it with them.

“I was so comfortable. I wasn’t gonna get changed, it was 4 in the morning!”

He seemed aware that the media’s perception of him was decided as soon as he dared to be a European with an actual personality.

It was the first week of October, and although he stumbled over a few of the words, Patrik told Nikolaj, “I’m just trying to be who I am. I don’t want to say sorry for not being boring,” and sent him another perfect pass across the ice.

He was lightning on the ice; his shots cracked loud and fast and firey. He was there one moment and gone the next. He was confident, nonchalant, and _everybody_ noticed him. When Patrik skated, elbow up, calling for the puck, to the top of the circle, there wasn't a single eye that wasn't on him.

They were road roomies, were probably going to be playing together, and he seemed really cool, albeit definitely strange (though maybe all hockey players were a little strange in their own ways, Nikolaj thought), so Nikolaj decided to befriend Patrik.

“What’re you up to tonight?” he asked over his phone in the hotel room in Minnesota, peering at Patrik unpacking on his side.

In response, Patrik poked his head up from behind the bed, grinned his devilish little smirk that meant there was either about to be a chirp or something goofy, and tossed Nikolaj a controller.

“Fifa?” He said, and that was really all it took.

“Oh, you’re on!” Nikolaj said, tossing his phone to the side.

“I will warn you that there is no chance that you are better than me,” Patrik said solemnly. 

“Such a bold claim, Patty. We’ll see about that.”

Okay, so turns out, Patrik was definitely better than him. He’d never admit that to anyone, though.

“This game is stupid anyway,” he huffed, tossing his controlling behind him after his third straight loss.

“So quick to change your mind about it.” Patrik clucked his tongue in disapproval. Nikolaj flopped back onto the bed.

“Shut up. If you brought ‘chel I’d totally, like, dominate.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, that sounds right,” Patrik said dryly. Nikolaj gave him a withering glare. They stared at each other for a few moments before both breaking out into giggles.

“So Finland, eh? What’s that like?” Nikolaj asked.

“Well,” Patrik said, turning very serious, “It’s very warm and sunny all the time-”

Nikolaj was cracking up before Patrik even finished his first sentence.

*

Patrik was a weird dude, but a funny dude. His teeth, his smile, and his hairline were all a little crooked. His humor was dry in a “blink and you’ll miss it” kind of way. Nikolaj was still figuring it out. Patrik would sometimes say something he wouldn’t think twice about, but then would find himself giggling about an hour later.

Their fourth game of the year was their first game against Toronto, and Patrik didn’t say anything about Auston Matthews in the locker room. He promised Nikolaj that he didn’t care, but he was quieter than usual and his knuckles were white when he laced up his skates.

Something was _off_ about the game. It was as if Toronto was skating above them, like the boys were trapped under the ice watching the play go by. Toronto scored, and scored, and scored, and scored again, until it was 4-0 and the bench was silent from anger.

Then Patrik skated out with his elbow and his face up, and he scored, like it was nothing. And he scored again. And then all of a sudden it was overtime, Nikolaj was trailing Patrik, who had the puck on his stick one moment and in the back of the net the next.

Nikolaj had never in his memory been in a louder arena than in that moment. He couldn’t hear himself screaming, “Fuck yes!”, and he couldn’t hear Patrik’s yelled response (although he was fairly certain he could deduct the tone) even though they were latched onto each other, flying down the ice as their teammates skated out to greet them, all their cheers and congratulations drowned out. 

It was the third week of October and their shiny new 18 year old had scored his first NHL hat trick. In his fourth NHL game. It was smooth sailing, so far.

Their next game wasn’t until the Heritage Classic that weekend, so the team took that cue to get outrageously drunk that night.

Patrik didn’t drink, even though it was legal for him both back home and in Winnipeg, so Nikolaj happily took his shot along with his own. And then a few more, for good measure.

The night faded in and out in sections. Nikolaj and Patrik were chatting in a booth as Nikolaj got drunker. Nikolaj was leaning on Patrik and they were laughing until they couldn’t breathe as they watched Wheels attempt to dance. Nikolaj was saying: “What is even going on in your brain, man? I can’t figure you out,” and Patrik was humoring him. Patrik was holding him up on the dance floor and dancing with him, which was mostly them laughing and singing along (poorly) to the ABBA song they had requested. Patrik was lugging him out to a taxi and giving the driver a 20 to get him home.

Nikolaj woke up and he remembered most of it, probably. He took a shower and two Advil.

*

It was getting colder every day in Winnipeg, and Nikolaj could only think of home. The frost creeped up the edge of every sidewalk and the sky was an impenetrable grey.

“Why so blue, Fly?” Patrik asked as he skated around him in a lazy circle, because he was having fun learning English idioms and his teammates’ nicknames. Nikolaj shrugged, starting his stickhandling warmup.

“Winnipeg winters remind me of home.” The corner of Patrik’s mouth quirked upward, making Nikolaj smile.

“We’re both, ah, you know,” he fumbled over the words, scrunching his brow, “cold-blooded.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Nikolaj shrugged again. Winter always had a twinge of melancholy, there was no escaping it. It was partly the cold, partly the thought of winters in Aalborg growing up, and partly the sun that set earlier and earlier every day.

Patrik’s smirk faltered a hair, just for a moment. He considered Nikolaj with an unreadable gaze. Nikolaj raised his eyebrows at him questioningly. Paul blew the whistle and Patrik tapped Nikolaj’s shinpads. He skated away in his lanky way, his limbs too long for his body.

It was the second week of November, and within the past three games Patrik had had his second hat trick and Nikolaj had scored a game-winning (game-losing, rather) own goal. Every season has its ups and downs.

They were back home for a weekend, just enough time for Nikolaj to catch his breath before they were whisked off again on a five game road trip. They were hopping city to city, living plane ride to plane ride. Suitcases stayed open on hotel floors; Patrik packed his controllers away messier each night.

The sky was unbelievably clear as they flew back to Winnipeg from Nashville. Nikolaj had the window seat, and Patrik pressed up against him to see outside, leaning over his body so their faces were side by side.

“S’nice,” Nikolaj said, only half-awake. Patrik hummed in agreement.

“My mom wants you to come over for dinner,” he said, arms still pressed up against each other.

“I could chirp you for still living with your mom-”

“And you could also order Skip the Dishes for the 10th night in a row,” Patrik replied pointedly. Nikolaj grinned in spite of himself. Patrik flipped up the lid of Nikolaj’s hat. “Or,” he continued, “you could shut your mouth and enjoy a home-cooked meal.”

“Alright, alright. No chirps.” Nikolaj slapped Patrik’s hands away and pulled his cap back down.

“Good choice,” Patrik said, before leaning back into his own seat and slipping in his earbuds, leaving Nikolaj to shake his head in wonder at what he had gotten himself into.

*

They fit in the dinner before they left again for another week-long trip. Patrik’s mother, Tuija, was sweet and busied herself with getting Nikolaj as comfortable as possible. She took his jacket, and Nikolaj wandered a bit around the main entrance of their condo, pictures of Patrik and his family through the years scattered around.

A picture of a baby-faced boy who was clearly a young Patrik caught Nikolaj’s eye, but before he could whip out his phone to send Scheif a legendary snap about it, a red-cheeked Patrik was grabbing his arm and yanking him down the hall.

Patrik’s room could most easily be described as a cave. His bed was piled high with blankets, and he had an elaborate gaming setup across from it.

“Holy shit,” Nikolaj laughed, “you’re living the life, man.”

“Pretty cool, right?” Patrik nodded, smug. They stood for a moment, simply admiring.

“So…” Nikolaj said, cocking his head toward the TV, “Fifa?” Patrik laughed.

“You’re on!”

Tuija had to drag them to the dinner table, but they weren’t sorry when they were there. The food was just homey enough to warm Nikolaj’s stomach and his heart, without being so similar to home that it just ended up making him more homesick.

Okay, it was stupid. It was really stupid because Nikolaj had been in Halifax before Winnipeg and it had been a long time since he’d lived full-time in Denmark. But, there would always be a small twinge of something whenever he passed a shop downtown with a smell that sparked some distant memory of childhood. 

They chattered for a few hours, and it all just felt sort of _right_. Nikolaj could easily understand why Patrik was happy still living with Tuija from her kind gaze and fluttery mothering over them, pushing more and more food on their plates and bouncing up and down, bringing more drinks or grabbing something out of the oven.

They spoke mostly in English, but once in awhile Patrik and Tuija would share small Finnish side remarks that Nikolaj imagined were mostly Tuija teasing her son for little things, based on the rising color in Patrik’s cheeks and the increasingly annoyed tone of his responses. 

Nikolaj couldn’t help but smile, and also wonder how in the world Patrik was managing to take the league by storm while also living out of Finland for the first time in his life, in a totally new culture.

He was taking it in stride, a smile on his face and a chip on his shoulder. He was chirping Nikolaj constantly, potting one-timers and wristers that were getting him compared to Ovechkin, Stamkos, and Tarasenko, brushing off Calder talks and continuing to score, over and over, in almost every team’s net-

That is, including their own.

Nikolaj didn’t really believe it happened at first. Just like every other of Patrik’s shots, it was on his stick one moment and in the net the next. There were a few moments of confusion, the Oilers also not quite sure what happened, but Patrik knew. He was red to the tips of his ears and he fell uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the game.

He trailed Paul like a kicked dog afterward into a long meeting while Wheels handled most of the media.

Patrik was still quiet on the plane, but the color in his ears had gone down. Nikolaj went to give his wrist a reassuring squeeze, only for Patrik to look at him with pleading eyes when he started to pull away. Nikolaj kept one hand wrapped around Patrik’s wrist on the armrest between them for the whole flight, both of them concentrating on their phones but Nikolaj tracing the tiniest of circles onto Patrik’s inner wrist with the pad of his finger.

It was the second week of December and they didn’t have another game for four days. They got back into Winnipeg early in the morning, stumbling out to their cars half awake. Every season has its ups and downs.

“It’s late. My mom will be asleep,” Patrik said, he and Nikolaj standing between their cars.

“Yeah, probably,” Nikolaj said, getting into his car. Patrik faltered for a moment, lingering outside Nikolaj’s driver side, leaning against his own passenger window. Nikolaj left his door open. Patrik was watching him. “Now, uh, we both have one.” He quirked his lips into a small smile. “Yours was a lot prettier, though.”

Patrik smiled and Nikolaj breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Goodnight, Patrik.” Nikolaj closed his door. Patrik still didn’t get into his own car, but he waved, and started to move as Nikolaj drove away.

*

Patrik regained his confidence like nothing had happened; he scored his twentieth goal in Tampa Bay to ring in the new year. His smile was all teeth, all crooked, in the locker room as the boys threw an incomprehensible jumble of “fuckin’” and “rights” at him that were most likely compliments. Nikolaj, of course, gave him a few healthy butt taps and blasted some ABBA for good measure that night in the hotel as they played Playstation. 

They were in Miami for the next game and Patrik wasted no time after the game getting undressed, stripping off his pads and showering quickly. He disappeared afterward for a long time, long enough that Paul turned to Nikolaj and said, “Nik, go find Patty, or the bus is leaving without him.” 

Nikolaj ambled through the maze-like halls of Florida’s arena until he found Patrik in his suit, leaning against the wall, chatting with Aleksander Barkov in rapid Finnish.

“Uh,” Nikolaj said, announcing himself. Patrik turned around and promptly went red when he saw Nikolaj.

“Fly,” he said, a nervous lilt in his voice that Nikolaj didn’t recognize. “Do you know Sasha?” 

They’d probably met at some point or another at some random European NHLers event but they shook hands all the same. 

“Nice to meet you,” Barkov said, smiling. Nikolaj had always been under the impression that Barkov was a shy guy, but the look he was giving Nikolaj was downright, well, maybe not _suggestive_ in a sexual kind of way, but it was certainly suggesting _something_. Barkov leaned into Patrik and said something in Finnish that made Patrik’s flush deepen and spread up his ears and down his neck. Patrik smacked his arm and replied in an annoyed tone while Barkov just turned back to Nikolaj and smiled that strange smile again.

Nikolaj stared blankly for a moment before saying, “So, yeah… Patty, we gotta leave now to get back to the hotel, Paul sent me to collect you.”

Patrik nodded, said a quick farewell to Barkov, and followed Nikolaj back to the team. He received some chirps from guys that he just brushed off and offered a small apology to Paul.

They didn’t speak again until they were squeezed against each other on the bus, the corner of Nikolaj’s shoulder pressed into the meat of Patrik’s upper arm.

“So, Barkov seems nice. You two friends?” He said, not meaning much of it, just trying to make conversation, but Patrik went all red again.

“We play a lot of CoD together,” he replied, his voice high in his throat. Nikolaj twisted his lips at that because Patrik wasn’t looking at him and he certainly wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

That night in the hotel room Nikolaj handily beat Patrik at Fifa, and then Nikolaj _really_ knew that something was up.

He didn’t say anything until later, when the light had been turned off and the room was bathed in darkness and quiet, save for the gentle street and ocean noises from the city far below. Nikolaj was under his covers but he felt like the waves of the Atlantic were pulling him under, creeping up along the edges of his body and cocooning him in a warm embrace.

“Patty? I know we’re hockey players and it’s lame to talk about feelings, or whatever,” Nikolaj began, “but, like, if you ever have something on your mind, you can talk to me about it.” He paused. “I wouldn’t even chirp you.”

A soft chuckle escaped Patrik, so Nikolaj knew he wasn’t asleep.

“Thanks, bud.” It made him feel a little better.

“Patrik?” he said again, pushing it, because at this point it was probably around 1 A.M. and God knows no other time of the day would be right for a conversation like this. “Are you and Barkov-or, Sasha, like, a thing?” He didn’t have quite the right word for it so he hoped that, at the very least, Patrik understood what he was trying to ask.

“No, I’m not-or, well, I am, uh,” Patrik’s words muddled together. “He was just teasing me for a crush I have,” he said after a moment of quiet. “On someone from back home.”

“Oh,” Nikolaj said, because it simultaneously didn’t and did answer his question and something in his stomach tightened in a confusing way.

The room was silent and Nikolaj drifted off to sleep, legs sticking out from under the covers to find relief from the blistering heat of Miami.

*

So, a turn for the better after the own goal, but Nikolaj should’ve known by then that what goes up always comes back down.

Turns out whatever confidence Patrik had regained didn’t matter much when it came to the hit in Buffalo that dropped him like a bag of sand and left him out cold.

Everything happens so fast on the ice. Nikolaj was skating into a scrum before it entirely registered what had happened. Patrik was behind the scrum, flat on his back. Nikolaj was doing his best imitation of fighting by flailing his arms around and yelling.

Scheif was still shouting some unrepeatable things to the Buffalo players as Nikolaj was wrapping an arm around Patrik and hauling him up and off the ice with a trainer. Nobody messed with their shiny Finnish sharpshooter without hearing from Scheif.

They dropped that game. Patrik had a concussion. Nikolaj took a long time getting out of his gear after, feeling every bump and bruise from the scrums. Wheels watched him with his jaw set. Something turned in Nikolaj’s stomach that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

*

At least it was minor, at least that’s what Nikolaj told himself. Though, he couldn’t seem to quash the churning feeling of _something_ in the pit of his gut. All that dissipated into warmth when he saw Patrik stroll into the rink, that ridiculous smirk still teasing Nikolaj even when Patrik was skateless and in street clothes.

Nikolaj wasn’t sure if he was skating a tiny bit harder in practice because of the loss, or because he could feel Patrik’s cool eyes trained on him the whole time.

*

The team went south for a three game road trip and Nikolaj roomed alone. Neither Paul nor the guys had ever bothered to try to separate Nikolaj and Patrik, so with Patrik not coming on the trip, Nikolaj had two beds and a TV and no Playstation (Patrik always brought his) all to himself.

Nikolaj went out with the guys. He got trapped in a chirping sandwich between Scheif and Troubs during dinner, which was equally embarrassing and fun, and he didn’t drink, because they were in America and his birthday wasn’t for another month.

Scheif got too excited about something again, or maybe Wheels made another extended metaphor about fatherhood, or maybe someone else did something that was so quintessentially and hilariously _them_ , and Nikolaj turned halfway to nudge and giggle at Patrik trailing behind him as always before he realized that he wasn’t there. 

The bed next to Nikolaj’s stayed made, sheets tucked into perfect hospital corners that Patrik would’ve immediately pulled out in disdain. The turning in his stomach came back, but he didn’t text Patrik, who was banned from using his phone.

*

The season was picking up and everything seemed to passing in a blur. Patrik was in non-contact yellow one day and in normal practice whites the next. Everyone held their breath until Patrik got the puck on his stick, off of it, and behind Pavs in the net all in the same moment. A lightning bolt, Nikolaj thought.

“Told ya, man,” Bucky laughed, and it was like a weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders.

Nikolaj and Patrik were inseparable any moment they were on the ice together. They skated in tandem, shoulders together and heads bent in conspiratorially.

“You’ll never guess what Scheif said in L.A.,” Nikolaj said.

“You’ll never guess what my mom did with my Playstation,” Patrik said.

Nikolaj got a look from Paul when he couldn’t stop giggling at Patrik’s descriptions of Tuija’s hiding places for all his electronics.

Patrik was back with the team in a blink of an eye but was whisked off again before Nikolaj could take a breath. Suddenly it was like he was underwater all over again. 

Patrik went to the All-Star game and the team watched the skills competition and drank too much. Scheif and Troubs were half on top of each other cackling about something, who knows what, and Wheels and Buff were pointing at the TV and yelling, “Hey, that’s our son!” anytime they showed a shot of Patrik.

Patrik was sitting alone on the end of the bench biting his lip and tufts of his hair were sticking out at every angle. Nikolaj’s head was hot to the tips of his ears watching his friend, his sometimes-liney, his rookie, his Patrik.

Patrik took the second hardest shot of the night and Nikolaj took another shot. The squirming in his stomach was rising high and hot into the base of his throat, the plane of his chest. Nikolaj tried to push it down like the vodka, wanted to keep it low and beneath the surface, but it rose like tides, waves against his sternum, pressure on every side of his head.

He felt like he was drowning, maybe, but that was probably just the alcohol talking.

He laughed along with his teammates and took the chirps about how close he and Patrik were in stride, then Bucky drove him home and he slept it all off.

It was the final week of January and they were probably not going to make playoffs, but Patrik was their shiny new star, their lightning bolt in a blurry year of grey. Every season has its ups and downs.

*

Nikolaj woke up one morning to find that he was 21. He didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t a landmark birthday when you lived in Canada, and there were the Stars that night to worry about.

“Happy birthday Nikolaj! On Valentine’s Day too! Any big plans?” Scheif asked, waggling his eyebrows along to the chorus of hollers in the background.

“Uh, just a big fuckin’ win tonight,” Nikolaj replied, and really, he wouldn’t normally call himself smooth, but that smooth if anything ever was. The boys were fired up, ready to go.

He and Patrik did their pre-game handshake and Patrik looked at him for a moment afterward before saying, “I didn’t get you anything for your birthday.”

“What?” Nikolaj said, before he entirely processed what Patrik had said. Then: “No, dude, you didn’t have to, don’t, uh,” he stumbled over his words and down the tunnel to the ice.

They took their first steps out onto the ice. Nikolaj turned to Patrik and glided slow.

“You know what?” He asked. Patrik raised his eyebrows. “Here’s what you can get me for my birthday: a couple goals.” He nudged Patrik, who was grinning evilly. 

“You got it.”

It was a funny joke until Patrik scored a hat trick (his third of the year, completing a hat trick of hat tricks, sparking the internet into a furor of whether he could beat at least one of Teemu’s records). They had a good laugh about it in the locker room.

“Yeah, I just thought, might as well keep my word,” Patrik shrugged, and Nikolaj shook his head.

Most of the guys rushed out to be with their wives and girlfriends, giving Patrik little congratulatory bumps and Nikolaj birthday wishes.

They walked out to their cars side by side. They both paused outside for a moment, the lot almost empty. Patrik opened, then closed his mouth. He reached for the handle of the door.

“It’s pretty late,” Nikolaj said, too fast, not sure where he was going with it. Patrik froze.

“Yeah,” he replied, his voice level.

“Your mom might be asleep already,” Nikolaj said. “And I’m not really tired,” which was half a lie. He simultaneously felt like he was going to crash the moment he hit his couch and like he was buzzing with an energy just below his skin, like he’d never sleep again.

“Hmm,” Patrik said. “What I’m getting from this is, ‘chel?” Nikolaj smiled.

They drove out of the garage with no regard for the speed limit, the only cars on the roads, from the brightly lit freeway to the quieter neighborhood Nikolaj lived in where the only interruptions to the blackness of the night were his and Patrik’s headlights.

They parked in the dark. The night was silent and serene. It seemed to Nikolaj like everyone was in bed with their lover, and he and Patrik were like, well, he wasn’t sure what Patrik was to him in his head, and he was trying not to think about it, because blood rushed to his brain and the twisting feeling in his stomach came back every time he did. Patrik followed Nikolaj up, his warm body close behind Nikolaj’s in the cold stairwell. It was like they were two little sparks in the vast world, emitting light secret to everyone but themselves.

Nikolaj wasn’t sure why everything had to be so damn poetic in his brain when Patrik was around. Patrik was still, you know, Patrik. He was an eighteen year old. He was picking gunk out from between his teeth with a fingernail and texting his mom when Nikolaj let them into his apartment.

“Don’t,” he warned, before Nikolaj could even start to chirp.

They ate food that the trainers’ lips would curl at and burned their retinas with Call of Duty and ‘chel.

“At least score on video game breakaways, c’mon,” Patrik said when Nikolaj missed again, referencing Nikolaj’s oft missed breakaway chances in their games, earning him a smack.

“Shut up, I’ll kick you out.”

“You won’t,” laughed Patrik, focusing more on the game and scoring on Nikolaj again.

Nikolaj put up a fight, but the bounces were just not going his way.

“No fucking way Pavs saves that in real life!” Nikolaj yelped in disbelief.

“No fucking way you score on Pavs with that shot in real life,” Patrik countered, and Nikolaj choked on air.

“Take that back, you demon,” he said, scrambling to try to grab Patrik’s controller, although he was much shorter and Patrik held it out of reach.

He laughed as Nikolaj clawed at him, dodging swipes and pushing back, his larger frame a significant upper hand. Patrik had an arm barred across Nikolaj’s chest and Nikolaj had a hand on Patrik’s thigh. Patrik overpowered Nikolaj and pushed him back onto the couch, the heel of his hand against the center of Nikolaj’s chest.

The tight hot turning in his stomach came back in full force as Nikolaj hit the cushions, spreading across every inch of his body, taking over like a fever, leaving his head spinning and the pads of his fingertips burning where they had touched Patrik. He could feel the spot on his shoulder Patrik had braced against him like it was ingrained in his muscles or seared into his skin, like he could draw the exact outline of where his hand was, the long crooked knuckles and every half-moon fingernail.

They played a little while longer. A half an hour, an hour maybe? But Nikolaj couldn’t focus. He felt like he was just a few seconds off from reality, his body fizzing along the planes of where their legs were pressed against each other.

Patrik eventually murmured something about needing to leave and Nikolaj watched him walk out, his body moving in a way only Patrik’s did; his limbs were too long and everything about him was a bit crooked in the most endearing way. He was too tall for his own body and he pulled his toque lower onto his head, his long arms tucked into his body, as he ducked out. His hair had gotten so long too, and it was peeking out crookedly at awkward angles from under the toque. Nikolaj had a sudden urge to jump up and smooth the soft white locks at the base of his neck, and in that moment the twisting in his stomach folded into itself and became realization.

Patrik closed the door behind him. 

“Oh,” Nikolaj said, and all the feeling, all the twisting and curling and burning in his skin tumbled out of his mouth in that one small half-sigh, half-word.

Nikolaj sat on the couch again. He looked at Patrik’s abandoned controller on the couch and then at his own. Nikolaj’s gaming system was pretty old (which Patrik would never let him forget), and the cords of their controllers were tangled all the way back to where they plugged in.

“Well, fuck,” he said.

*

They headed on a four game road trip before their break. And suddenly, everything was just _different_. When Patrik pressed their arms together on the plane or tapped his stick against Nikolaj’s pads in practice, bolts of electricity fizzled under Nikolaj’s skin like they were magnetic. Nikolaj didn’t know much about electromagnets, but he knew Patrik. 

Patrik was tall and confident and really fucking goofy. Not many people got Patrik’s humor, and not many goalies got Patrik’s shot. He had crooked teeth, a penchant for dabbing, and almost always an arm pressed against Nikolaj’s.

As the weeks passed, Nikolaj became more distracted by the deafening Calder discussion than Patrik. Patrik wasn’t thinking about the Calder or Matthews, as much as the media would’ve liked to believe. The rest of the team had a little itch, though. Patrik wasn’t bothered but he was dialed in, perhaps more riled up about their upcoming Toronto game because of the reporters in the city than the players.

Patrik scored twice but they lost in overtime in a scrappy hard-fought game. They dutifully did their required media and were set free for break.

Nikolaj didn’t really catch Patrik after the game; he was understandably swarmed by reporters and even more understandably excited to go home as soon as the reporters left him alone.

They snapped and texted a little over the break. But every selfie, every chirp, every punctuation mark had a new and confusing meaning. Nikolaj lay in bed and read and re-read texts, driving himself crazy. He had only half-admitted to himself that he had a crush on an eighteen year old rookie. But every time he got a new text, or saw something that reminded him of Patrik, fondness washed over him like ocean water.

So, break ended up not being the relaxing time it could’ve been, but Nikolaj’s heart was always one for action anyway. He ended up antsy sitting around for too long; he needed to get up, needed to move, needed to _skate_. The boys called him Fly for a reason.

Being back on the ice felt like absolute freedom, but the six game homestand that was coming was going to be a bumpy road of getting their sea legs back.

“Happy to be back?” Nikolaj asked Patrik as they skated in practice.

“Back on the ice? Of course. Back with you? Tougher question,” Nikolaj guffawed.

“Please!” He laughed. “I got those snaps, man. You _know_ you missed me!” Nikolaj spun around and skated backwards. Patrik rolled his eyes but his smile gave him away.

“Right, right, I forgot,” he shot back, deadpan. “I was actually waiting at my window for you every day, just crying thinking of you.”

Nikolaj played the bit again when reporters were pestering Patrik, because he knew it would bother him, and he had turned into a middle schooler acting out to get their crush to notice them.

Time seemed to drag around this point in the season. They had their second physical game against Pittsburgh, leaving them all nursing bruises in the locker room, and playoff chances were increasingly bleak.

“This was supposed to be our season,” Patrik grumbled in his stall after another loss, balling up his tape angrily after the game, still half in his gear. “We were supposed to be great. _I_ was supposed to be great. Now look at this.” He splayed his red hands out on his knees, palms up, and Nikolaj watched him with a careful eye.

Almost everyone had gone home for the night. It was tense in the room, no one wanting to give up and tank but also everyone painfully aware that their chances for playoffs were slipping through their fingers, and had been slim even from earlier in the season.

With a week left in March, they were eliminated from playoff contention. Every season has its ups and downs.

*

“We are a hockey team with integrity, and dignity.” Wheels was standing in the locker room with his gear on, and there wasn’t a single eye that wasn’t raptly on him, their captain. “We’re not gonna go out there and flail, or _tank_ , or give up just because there’s no playoffs for us this season. We have to finish the season out strong, and show what we will be next year.”

Sufficiently moralized and pumped up from Wheels, the boys went on a tear, a seven game winning streak to close out the season. Suddenly, it just felt like, maybe they were a team that could make playoffs, and actually win a playoff game someday soon.

Nikolaj joked with the media about how nice having time away from Patrik was going to be, but gave Patrik a big hug on clean-out day just the same.

“Am I gonna see you at Worlds?” Nikolaj asked against Patrik’s collarbone. He could see Patrik’s shaggy hair move with his head, shaking “no”.

“It’s been a very long year.” Patrik gave his shoulder a healthy slap, and the corner of his mouth lifted, revealing a few teeth. Nikolaj watched as Patrik’s eyes scanned him. “We’re sharing a hotel room for Toby’s wedding, right?” Nikolaj nodded, watching Patrik’s lips but not really paying attention to the words coming out.

“‘Course, man. Should be fun.”

It was the end of Patrik’s rookie season and Nikolaj’s sophomore, and the locker room had narrowed to just their corner, their blue name cards and old tape stuck in their stalls peeling at the edges. Nikolaj told the reporters that it was going to be nice being away from Patrik but the possessive instinct in his stomach was rolling with discontent.

He was hoping for a short summer.

*

Nikolaj went to Worlds. Denmark never had a chance, but he was still itching to play more; any game of experience was a game he wanted to play. He flew to Mallorca after to relax with a childhood friend for one week and then his sister for a second.

He posted a shirtless picture on Instagram and Patrik didn’t comment. Which, whatever, but Nikolaj wished he would. He was antsy for Toby’s wedding and the Swedish coast, looking forward to sharing a room and his easy rapport with Patrik.

His sister was giving him looks every now and then that meant she was doing what teenage sisters did best: see through bullshit like it was clear.

“Who is it?” she finally asked after dinner on their last day, as they walked along the coast back to their hotel, feet dragging in the sand and Nikolaj’s face in his phone. Patrik had been sending him some particularly funny stories from home and Nikolaj had been missing the sound of breath whistling through Patrik’s teeth and the moments the light caught his hair just so to make it glow translucent white.

“What?” He asked, pocketing his phone. “Oh, it’s just Patrik.”

“Okay,” she said, hands in her pockets, smiling to herself but not saying anything more.

The sun set in Mallorca and Nikolaj flew back to Denmark and started working out. June melted quickly into July and before Nikolaj knew it, he found himself packing for Toby’s wedding.

*

He met Patrik at the airport. They hugged, and started making their way out to find a cab. Patrik had cut his hair, and already seemed a bit bigger. They strolled alongside each other comfortably, chatting about their summers so far. Patrik had been following the end of Tappara’s season; Nikolaj told him about Worlds and his time in Mallorca.

They came to a big sign with information about the airport, transport, and the area. Patrik and Nikolaj both looked at the sign, then at each other.

“You speak Swedish, right?” Patrik asked.

“Uh,” Nikolaj said. “I was gonna ask you the same thing. Don’t they teach you Swedish in Finland?”

“I dropped out of high school,” Patrik replied dryly, raising his eyebrows.

“I went to high school in Nova Scotia,” Nikolaj countered.

“Well, fuck.” Patrik’s shoulders fell. They peered back at the sign.

“Okay, uh, well, it seems fairly similar to Danish,” Nikolaj said, tracing a finger across some parts that were intelligible. Patrik sighed in relief.

Through a combination of Patrik’s grade school memories of whatever Swedish he could muster and Nikolaj’s ability to fake it through cognates, they were able to get a cab and get on their way to the hotel.

The cabbie spoke perfect English. “I just realized that there was probably an English version of that sign somewhere,” Nikolaj sighed, looking up at Patrik next to him.

“God dammit,” Patrik muttered.

“We’re really lucky that we have a single high school diploma between the two of us.” Nikolaj patted Patrik’s thigh, who just rolled his eyes.

*

Patrik had gotten the hotel room; Nikolaj lingered back with their bags as Patrik spoke with the woman at the front desk. Clearly the language barrier wasn’t an issue, as Patrik walked back to Nikolaj waggling the room key with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

“Wi-Fi’s free, baby,” Patrik said through his lopsided smile, tossing an arm over Nikolaj’s shoulders as they walked to the elevator.

They dropped their bags and split as soon as they walked into the room. Patrik headed to find the bathroom and Nikolaj went to lie down as soon as possible. He turned the corner of the room expecting two beds and only finding one. Confused, he spun around. Patrik was there, having finished in the bathroom.

“What’s up?” he asked, sitting on the bed.

“Where’s the other bed?”

“Uh,” Patrik responded. “There isn't two?”

“You were supposed to get the room, man, c’mon!” Nikolaj said, laughing nervously and shoving Patrik’s shoulder to distract from the fact that his knees were shaking. It was the most rom-com situation possible, sleeping next to Patrik, his big body and warmth so close to him, his long limbs brushing up against Nikolaj’s in the night.

“Sorry, sorry! I just picked the cheapest one that said two people!” Patrik flopped backwards.

Legs shaking, apprehensive, Nikolaj crawled up and laid next to him. The ceiling was a swirled drywall pattern, which was strangely hypnotic. The bed was narrow, but comfortable. Nikolaj was in a t-shirt, and the hair on his upper arm stood up when he brushed against the soft fabric of Patrik’s zip-up.

“Sorry about the Calder, man,” Nikolaj said, still looking at the ceiling. He could feel Patrik shrug next to him, the fabric of the zip-up brushing upward and then downward against his arm.

“I’ll just win a couple of Rockets to make myself feel better.”

Nikolaj laughed. “‘Atta boy!”

He wasn’t sure how it happened, maybe something about staring at a hotel ceiling with the warmth of Patrik next to him, but he couldn’t help but remember the night in Miami six months earlier when Patrik quietly admitted to having a crush on someone from home. Nikolaj wondered if Patrik had been spending time with them this summer in Finland, sitting in the sauna with them, or training with them, or spending summer nights with them out by a lake in Tampere or Turku or wherever Patrik was training now.

He peered over at Patrik, who was commenting what he could only imagine was a chirp on a friend’s Instagram. He wished he wasn’t jealous, because what claim did he have on his newly-nineteen newly-not-rookie rookie? But his heart pulled all the same.

*

They spent the afternoon exploring the hotel. It was a five-star hotel right on the water, towering above the other buildings surrounding the harbor.

“Fly, Fly,” Patrik said, tugging at Nikolaj’s shirt, pulling him away from where he was, pressed up against the window on the top floor, ogling the view. “There’s a sauna!”

“Oh, cool. I’ve never been in one, actually,” Nikolaj said, clearly not thinking, because if there ever was a moment in their friendship where Patrik came close to friend-dumping him, that was it.

“You’ve _never_ been in a sauna?” he asked, incredulous, muttering to himself words that were likely Finnish and vulgar.

“No, I mean, it’s not really a thing in Denmark.” Nikolaj threw up his hands defensively. Patrik harrumphed.

“After the wedding tomorrow, I know what we’re doing,” Patrik said, his face solemn. “Sauna is serious business.”

“Okay, okay, sheesh. C’mon, I heard there’s a gym.”

*

They channel-surfed after dinner in hopes of finding any sort of hockey without success. They were on their sixth or seventh Swedish news channel when Patrik got up and said, “Okay, my brain is tired enough from English all day. Swedish is gonna give me a headache. I’m going to bed.”

Nikolaj looked up at him and clicked the TV off. “I guess I, uh, will also,” he said, “considering that there’s only one bed. Unless, uh, you want me to sleep on the couch.” Patrik tilted his head at him.

“What? No, don’t be an idiot. It’s only weird if you make it weird.” Patrik went to the bathroom to wash up before bed and Nikolaj got changed in the bedroom.

Nikolaj laid in bed and didn’t look over his shoulder when Patrik climbed in beside him. He was slipping under waves again, sand and salt and cold reaching tendrils into his hair. He closed his eyes and felt himself sink backwards, water rushing up around him and pulling him in deep, the pressure intense yet comforting.

Growing up, people always tell you that water and electricity don’t mix. You’re meant to get out of the swimming pool during summer thunderstorms. Nikolaj considered this fact while also contemplating another he was certain of: Patrik was a lightning bolt, on and off the ice. If so, he thought, his body sinking deeper under the waves, then he was in trouble.

Patrik was already fast asleep next to him and Nikolaj felt like he was drowning, but the hair standing up on his arms foretold a coming storm.

*

The wedding was nice. The wedding was also in Swedish, which was less nice, but Patrik and Nikolaj managed to stand when everyone else stood and sit when everyone else sat and clapped whenever necessary, so overall it was a success. The reception was held in a tent overlooking the Swedish coast.

They ambled along the rocks in their suits (and shoes that were most definitely never meant for rock-walking) to walk off the cake. The breeze off the ocean sprayed them; Nikolaj could taste the salt on his bottom lip.

Toby kissed his wife on the dancefloor. Somewhere between Nikolaj’s second and third glass of wine, he and Patrik started dancing. It was a little classier than being sloppy-drunk and sweating through a t-shirt onto Patrik in the back of a Winnipeg dive bar, but Patrik’s steadying grip on his elbow as they moved was the same. 

Patrik was luckily mature enough to cart a ruffled, slightly tipsy Nikolaj and his discarded tie to a cab after their goodbyes and well-wishes. Nikolaj could've kissed him, he was so proud. “I could kiss you,” he said, because tipsy Nikolaj didn’t have a filter, just a direct feed from his brain to his mouth.

“Okay, Fly,” Patrik just said, faintly red and patting Nikolaj’s arm. “Drink some of your water or you'll feel like shit tomorrow.”

*

“Are we, uh, sauna-ing?” Nikolaj asked, sitting on the floor of their hotel room and sobering up, struggling to get his shoes off.

“Fuck yeah,” Patrik replied, kicking off his own shoes and shrugging off his suit jacket.

“Do you, y’know, actually go, like, in the nude?” Nikolaj had succeeded in removing his first shoe and moved on to the second. Patrik laughed.

“Yeah, but you can wear a towel if you’re shy.” Nikolaj was pretty sure Patrik was talking down to him. Patrik was also standing at full height above the sitting Nikolaj, so it was kind of literal as well.

Being naked in the sauna wasn’t weird. They’d been naked around each other often enough in the locker room. Patrik got the stove going and Nikolaj melted into the wooden bench. Nikolaj let his head loll back and sweat drip down his neck.

“Okay. Finland knows what they’re doing. This is amazing.” Nikolaj turned and smiled at Patrik. Patrik just nodded.

“Figuring out how to deal with the cold is kinda what we do.” 

The sauna was on the top floor of the hotel and overlooked the coast. Nikolaj made sure to add a short video to his Instagram story showing it off, including a reluctant Patrik (“Patty, smile” “Why?” “Shut up, just smile”) and the silver chain around his neck that dropped all the way to his sternum.

They sat in silence for a minute. Patrik was a seasoned vet when it came to the sauna, leaning back with his eyes closed, but Nikolaj was an ansty beginner. He flicked his eyes back and forth between Patrik, his phone, and the view.

Patrik opened a single eye and watched him. He grabbed Nikolaj’s wrist.

“Stop thinking,” he said. “Just, ah, exist, okay?” 

Sometimes, Nikolaj thought, Patrik not having the exact right word in English he was looking for made what he was saying make more sense, somehow.

*

They slept together again, or rather, slept next to each other again, before heading back to the airport the next morning. Nikolaj woke to the curve of Patrik’s spine pressed against his own and the sound of rain hitting the window.

“Patrik, are you awake?”

“Yeah?” Patrik’s voice was groggy and his accent was noticeably thick, even from his single word answer.

“I think, uh,” Nikolaj paused to look out the window. A single drop of water ran down the glass until it found another; the two continued down together. Nikolaj lost his train of thought. “Nevermind.”

He couldn’t see Patrik’s face, but he could feel the muscles in his back tighten.

*

He spent the rest of the summer working out. Patrik commented on one of his Instagram posts, and he preened. It wasn’t long before August became September and they were face to face again, Nikolaj staring right up at Patrik in front of him.

Patrik who was now sporting _something_ on his face that vaguely reminded Nikolaj of a beard, but it was really not worthy of that title.

“Jesus Christ, Patty,” he laughed, reaching up to grab the hair on his chin, “what in the living hell is this?” Patrik smacked his hands away.

“It’s a bet with my cousin. I gotta grow it all year.” Nikolaj grimaced. “And besides,” Patrik continued, turning his nose up at Nikolaj, “I think it’s pretty good.”

“Uh-huh, okay bud, whatever you say,” Nikolaj said, because whenever Patrik got like this there was no convincing him.

(The beard was ugly and a little crooked, just like everything about Patrik. And Nikolaj _hated_ the beard, don’t get him wrong, but when Patrik grinned his crooked little smile it maybe kind of worked.)

Everyone was excited about training camp. It just felt like this was _finally_ their season. They had all the pieces. There were no excuses now, and they were all feeling it. If they couldn’t make the playoffs this year, if they couldn’t muster the first playoff victory for their franchise, then everyone was on the chopping block. 

But they were confident. Patrik had gotten big over the summer, noticeably big, so big that Nikolaj caught himself staring in the locker room, which was something he hadn’t done since juniors. Nikolaj was faster, Scheifs was stronger, Jacob was, well, actually there, and Mason and Bucky were providing some healthy competition to each other for the starting spot in goal.

Preseason was fine, but no one ever really pays attention to preseason anyway. Nikolaj was never going to live down not burying the goal off of Patrik’s beautiful saucer pass, but that’s how things always were for them. He was happy to turn around and chirp Patrik for his beard or for living with his mom _again_ this year, or any little bit of ammo he had.

They were confident going into their first game. Or, correction, they were _overconfident_ going into their first game.

Toronto came to their barn, Mason started, and they lost 7-2.

Patrik’s white blonde hair stuck to his forehead in the locker room and Nikolaj realized that he kind of missed the long hair, how it stuck out of his helmet at every angle during the game and curled at the nape of his neck after he showered.

Patrik was taking off his gear and a droplet of sweat escaped his hair and ran down his neck. Nikolaj felt a phantom droplet run down his own neck, but when he reached a hand around to wipe it off, his neck was dry.

“We’ll get ‘em next time, eh?” Nikolaj said in the parking garage, standing between their two cars. “We’re gonna be great this season, I can feel it.”

“I’d rather have a blowout loss in October than in April,” Patrik said, speaking in the simultaneously simple and profound way that only he could.

*

They went to Calgary, Mason started again, and they lost their second in a row in the first two games of the season, 6-3. Every season has its ups and downs.

*

They left for their three game roadie and everyone was irritable heading into Edmonton. If they couldn’t turn it around soon, who knows who’d be gone. Playoffs or bust, that’s what they’d been saying since they were eliminated in the spring.

They arrived in the morning, and Nikolaj was getting settled while Patrik was on his bed making a phone call.

He was talking in low Finnish, vowels rolling rhythmically off his tongue. The extent of Nikolaj’s knowledge of Finnish was “perkele”, “vittu”, and “kiitos”, but he liked the way it sounded. Nikolaj spoke a few Germanic languages, but nothing in the Nordic countries sounded like Finnish.

He scrolled through his phone and listened to Patrik’s phone call. Patrik was giggling and speaking animatedly, and he couldn’t help but feel a little curious as to who he was talking to. When Patrik finally ended the call, Nikolaj couldn’t help himself.

“Who was that?” he asked, trying to be casual about it.

“You know my friend Jesse? Puljujärvi?” An image of a big kid with a broad smile was conjured in Nikolaj’s brain. 

“Oh, yeah. World Juniors buddy, right?” Patrik nodded. “He’s on the Oilers, right?” Nikolaj tried to think back to the ‘16 draft, counting out in his head, Matthews, Laine, Dubois, Puljujärvi. Patrik crinkled his nose.

“Yes, sort of. He’s playing on the farm team. This summer we made plans to hang out in Edmonton while I was here, but they sent him to Bakersfield which, apparently, is in _California_ , so.” Patrik shrugged.

“Oh. Sorry, man. That sucks.”

“Eh, it’s okay. He’ll be ready eventually. I think he was having trouble with the whole ‘different-continent’ thing. Also, his English is way worse than mine, so that doesn’t help.” Patrik laughed through that.

“That’s cold, man, chirping the guy when he’s not here to defend himself,” Nikolaj shook his head and tutted in mock disapproval.

“He’ll survive.” Patrik rolled his eyes. “Media just thinks it’s cute. Funny guy, cute accent, talks like a toddler, who wouldn’t love him?”

The corner’s of Patrik’s lips were quirked up and something like realization twinged in Nikolaj’s chest. Nikolaj liked teasing Patrik more than he disliked the pulse of jealousy in his stomach, though, so he flipped over to lean on his stomach with his chin rested on a fist and said, “Aww, he’s your crush on ‘someone from home’, isn’t he?”

Patrik spluttered. “No! What?! Shut the fuck up, Fly,” he said, but he was starting to flush red, and Nikolaj burst out laughing.

“Oh, I’m so right!” he crowed while Patrik continued to vehemently deny it.

“Don’t worry bud,” Nikolaj said, taking great joy in the embarrassed flush of Patrik’s face and pushing down the jealousy. (Jesse was probably taller than him, wasn’t he?) “I’ll even cover for you when we’re on our California roadie so you can go have, like, a lover’s tryst, or whatever.”

“A lover’s _wha_ \- actually, no, I don’t want to know.” Patrik shook his head. “Jesse and I, we’re not, or, well, we hooked up a few times at World Juniors, but-”

“Oh, shit, you hooked up at World Juni-”

“It was only a couple of times!” Patrik interrupted, the flush deepening in his face. “It was stupid. Besides-” Patrik turned even redder, if it was possible, the flush spreading out to his hairline, the tips of his ears, and rushing down his neck to disappear below his collar “-Jesse couldn’t be my crush from home. Winnipeg is home now.” 

Nikolaj looked at him blankly.

“You never go out; who have you even _met_ in Winnipeg?” He asked, pointedly not understanding.

“Fly, you are a fucking idiot.” Patrik facepalmed. Nikolaj stared, still not getting it. “It’s you! I’ve liked you since, God, since I got here.”

“Oh,” Nikolaj said, feeling like waves were crashing in on him from all sides.

“I’m sorry if it’s weird, or if you want me to room with Copper or someone else now,” Patrik blabbered, talking nervously and too-quickly, “but you’re the one who asked, so it’s kind of _your_ fault for making it wei-” 

“You dumbass, shut up and kiss me already,” Nikolaj interrupted, climbing over onto Patrik’s bed and pressing their mouths together.

Patrik didn’t kiss back at first, but after a beat he leaned into it and moved with Nikolaj, his lips warm and wet, his god-awful beard a little scratchy. Nikolaj kissed him hard, kissed him like he’d wanted to for months, taking Patrik’s bottom lip between his teeth and curling his fingers into the hem of Patrik’s sweatshirt.

Patrik shivered against him, getting a hand around the nape of Nikolaj’s neck and running his fingers gently against the skin there and running his other hand high against Nikolaj’s thigh.

Patrik got his tongue in Nikolaj’s mouth and Nikolaj got his hands under Patrik’s sweatshirt, touching him everywhere he could, feeling along Patrik’s spine and the his solid abdomen (he really had bulked up over the summer, Nikolaj thought). Patrik was dancing his hands around Nikolaj’s waistband and Nikolaj’s head was spinning.

They were sat awkwardly, and Nikolaj couldn’t stand Patrik still having that sweatshirt on, so he pushed Patrik onto his back, splayed out on the bed. Nikolaj leaned over him and felt the hem of the sweatshirt between his fingers.

“Can I take this off you?” he asked lowly, his voice thick. Patrik only let a high noise out from his throat, nodding, red all over.

When he stripped the sweatshirt off of Patrik and discarded it, Nikolaj discovered that the flush spread across his chest as well.

He took a moment to kiss Patrik again, exploring his bare chest with his hands, slotting a thigh between Patrik’s legs to find him hard there. Patrik exhaled in surprise at the contact and jerked his hips up, rutting against Nikolaj’s leg.

Nikolaj moved onto to kissing Patrik’s neck, avoiding the beard, while he reached down with shaking fingers to pull off Patrik’s pants. In his head he thanked whatever God was listening for Patrik’s propensity for sweatpants and joggers, in his desire to be as comfortable as possible at all times.

Patrik talked a lot of smack about how much he hated English, and Nikolaj tended to agree, but when Nikolaj hooked down Patrik’s boxer briefs and got a hand and a mouth around his dick, Patrik was spluttering off enough English curses to make any Canadian in a locker room blush. 

Nikolaj worked his hand around the base of Patrik’s cock and his tongue around the head of it. Patrik writhed underneath him, flushed red all over his body and hips bucking up. Nikolaj looked up at Patrik with lidded eyes and reached up to hold his hips down while he took Patrik deeper into his mouth.

Nikolaj hollowed his cheeks and Patrik grabbed him by the hair, which, _whoa_ , went straight to Nikolaj’s dick. Patrik was breathing heavily; he panted, “Fuh-uh-Fly, I’m gonna,” before his thighs tensed under Nikolaj’s palms and he came into Nikolaj’s mouth.

Nikolaj sucked him through it and then crawled up the bed to see Patrik face-to-face; he was red like they were mid-game and his white hair was slick with sweat and sticking to his forehead. Nikolaj smiled and kissed him, kissed him like he was just realizing this was _real_ and Patrik was _here_ underneath him, barenaked, red and sweating post-orgasm.

“Don’t call me my team nickname while I’m blowing you, asshole,” Nikolaj said, a hand against Patrik’s chest.

“Shut up, _Nikolaj_ ,” Patrik said, “let me jerk you off.” Nikolaj’s voice hitched in his throat as he tried to chirp Patrik back because Patrik shoved his sweats halfway down Nikolaj’s thighs and pulled his dick out of the front of his boxers.

“Jesse and I,” Patrik said, curling his hand around Nikolaj, “we never, with our mouths, just, uh, just like this.” He stroked Nikolaj down the full length of his dick, and Nikolaj just nodded. For a moment he was hit with how young Patrik still was, never having lived away from his mom, while Nikolaj had spent teenage years in Halifax trying everything and every _one_ , drinking godawful pineapple vodka in someone’s basement and getting a blowjob for the first time in a movie theatre bathroom from a boy with eyes almost as blue as Patrik’s. 

He gripped Patrik’s shoulder and kissed him behind his ear as Patrik stroked him. Patrik’s broad hands and soft words reminded Nikolaj that while Patrik was young, he sure as hell wasn’t a _kid_ , that’s for sure.

“God, fuck, Nikolaj, you’re so hot, I’ve wanted this for so long, you wouldn’t believe-” Patrik rolled a thumb over the head of Nikolaj’s cock and the precum leaking there “-spending too long in the shower in hotels jerking off with you right there, or in the bathroom with the sink on so my mom wouldn’t hear,” he continued babbling lowly in his ear in that voice he used when he was telling someone on the ice to go fuck themselves, but Nikolaj was so gone on him, and he was warm from the pit of his stomach down his legs, and Patrik only had to skate his fingernails against the back of Nikolaj’s neck before he shuddered and came, electricity jolting through his body.

Nikolaj flopped back onto the bed, boneless and dizzy. Patrik was lying next to him, looking at him starry-eyed.

*

They beat Edmonton 5-2 that night. Nikolaj was flying; he wasn’t sure if Patrik changed something about his body chemistry by touching his dick (or if that was even possible), but he felt like the ice underneath him was on fire. When the puck was on his stick, electricity pulsed through him and he shot through the Oilers like lightning through a tree. He scored, then scored again. When he finished the hat trick, and he didn’t miss that crooked knowing smirk Patrik gave him as he flew by the bench for his fist bumps. A single Jets hat lay atop the Oilers’ logo on the ice.

They landed in Vancouver and listlessly made their way into the hotel. Nikolaj was splayed out on his bed within moments of getting into their room. Instead of untucking the sheets of the second bed, the window bed, _Patrik’s bed_ , like he usually did, Patrik instead laid on top of Nikolaj, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Nikolaj’s neck.

“You’re heavy, holy fuck,” Nikolaj groaned from underneath him, poking Patrik’s side until he rolled off.

“Y’know, you might just have to start sucking my dick before every game if you’re gonna go score a hat trick afterward,” Patrik raised his eyebrows at Nikolaj, who just shook his head and pushed his shoulder.

“I could teach you how it’s done, and get you a few goals too,” Nikolaj shot back calmly.

“Okay, yeah, sounds good,” Patrik said with no hesitation.

They laughed and kissed and kicked off their shoes.

“CoD?” Patrik asked against Nikolaj’s mouth.

“You’re on.” Nikolaj squinted at Patrik and felt his heart buzz.

They sat on Nikolaj’s bed and played, Nikolaj halfway onto Patrik’s lap, their ankles hooked around each other’s. They were playing online together, against some random Vancouver teenagers who were up way too late and couldn’t chirp to save their lives.

Neither of them was really paying attention; when Patrik got killed (again), he turned to Nikolaj and said, “Ever since this morning, I’ve felt, like…”

He trailed off, not finding the words.

“Show me,” Nikolaj said. On screen, his avatar died too.

Patrik reach over and wrapped his fingers around Nikolaj’s wrist. 

Waves crashed in around Nikolaj’s head, submerging his body. He could taste the salt in his mouth and feel the gentle push and pull of the tides, calming the intense buzz that Patrik had slipped under his skin. With Patrik’s fingers brushing the soft skin of his inner wrist and the feeling of water rushing over his body, Nikolaj felt like something finally made sense.

“Oh,” Nikolaj said as Patrik pulled his hand away. He contemplated Patrik for a moment, his pale blue eyes and pale hair, his crooked teeth and red skin and red lips. “Me too,” he said, because it was true.

Patrik smiled and picked up his controller again, his arm pressed against Nikolaj’s and the whole world far away beneath them.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is the definition of "labor of love", so thanks for reading! Nikolaj and Patrik really are a special pair! Many of the scenes of this are based off of real life things that happened (obviously heavily fictionalized, though), and while there are too many to go through and post links to references, if you're curious about the basis to the scenes I'm happy to play Nikolaj/Patrik historian and dig up links to Instagram posts or quotes of them chirping each other, etc. 
> 
> the one thing I will say is that while this is a sister fic to "(no) hard feelings", there actually is discontinuity between them: in "(no) hard feelings", the team goes to the bar after Patrik's November 8th hat trick, while in this fic they go to the bar after Patrik's October 19th hat trick. Silly me, getting my hat tricks mixed up. I figure that it can be explained by saying that they go out after both, considering that there's nothing to dispute that in either fic. oh well!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ raregoose, and my Nikolaj/Patrik tag is /tagged/nordic bffs, so check it out, and please feel free to come yell at me about jets boys!!


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